The Magic of Hunt Slonem’s Louisiana

by Cayman Clevenger

HUNT SLONEM SITS in a chair that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother Joseph. “Believe it or not, he lived in New Jersey,” he tells me. Slonem is a baritone who speaks with a punctuated, deliberate cadence. He chooses his words carefully, and he loves sharing pieces of arcana, like the one about Joseph Bonaparte.

When in Louisiana, Slonem can often be found at Madewood, his home on the banks of Bayou LaFourche about an hour south of Baton Rouge, outside of the small town of Napoleonville. It is one of three historic homes in Louisiana he is restoring and preserving for future generations—the others are Albania on Bayou Teche near Jeanerette and Lakeside in Bachelor, north of Baton Rouge. He has been enamored with Louisiana since his days at Tulane University in the 1970s, where his muses of art, history and architecture came together; they continue to define his career.

Although you won’t find his signature on the front of any of his works, Slonem’s art is distinctly his own and instantly recognizable. He’s a painter, print-maker, sculptor, entrepreneur, educator, writer and conservationist. Four years ago, Lee Jofa, the high-end interior design firm, approached Slonem about launching his own luxury fabrics, wallpaper and carpet. “Charles E. Burchfield, who was one of the most important American watercolor painters, created wallpaper for most of his life and used that >>

wallpaper with his work in shows and museums, and I am following in his mold,” says Slonem.

In a separate arrangement with Penelope Scott Kernen, Slonem designs scarves, bags and household goods for his “Hop Up Shop,” a nod to his famous bunnies. He once created a decorative tabletop for Tiffany & Co. and collaborated with Audi on the design of a one-of-a-kind A5 coupe art car as a fundraiser for cancer research.

His works are featured in the most respected museums and private collections in the world. And although he’s based in New York, Slonem has devoted outsized attention to Louisiana. “When I got to Tulane, I was able to take courses that mesmerized me. I got an A in Italian Renaissance Art History from Professor Shapiro, which I consider the greatest accomplishment of my life,” jokes Slonem. “My favorite Tulane memory was taking Louisiana architecture from Sam Wilson.” Wilson, who is responsible for ensuring the rehabilitation of the Cabildo and the Pontalba buildings in Jackson Square, was widely considered to be the “dean of historic preservation” in New Orleans. It was in Wilson’s class that the young student from Kittery, Maine, visited Madewood for the first time, not knowing it would one day belong to him.

Looking back at his time at Tulane, he says, ”It was a rich lifestyle just being enveloped by history, and not to be tacky, but ‘vestiges of grandeur,’ to quote Richard Sexton. It gave me a sensibility that has lasted my entire adult life of patina and the mixture of periods.”

Slonem’s Louisiana homes are not tourist destinations but architectural gems. He has collected them, much like other treasures that have caught his fascination over time. When we spoke on the phone, there was a concert of tropical birds playing in the background. His legendary menagerie of more than 60 rare and exotic birds all live in the aviary

Slonem installed inside his 30,000-square-foot NYC studio. Almost all of his birds were unwanted pets or adoptions, and some are up to 80 years old. His passions—for art, for his birds, for collecting things and for architecture—animate his creativity.

Today, Slonem is acknowledged as one of the most prodigious and in-demand living American artists. A productive day in the studio for him can yield numerous small paintings. He often spends days, sometimes weeks, perfecting larger works.

“I am able to experiment with mediums a lot more, like diamond dust and metallics, because I am not struggling with endless subject matter searches,” he says. Indeed, although there are a number of subjects in Slonem’s repertoire, he frequently returns to his favorites.

“I decided repetition was not a dirty word. I talk about the connection to the divine when looking at nature. When I was in India, I would go on japa walks and look at nature— everything from the blades of grass to leaves on trees. And these things are completely dissimilar, yet they add up to something that’s recognizable and beautiful.”

It’s an apt metaphor for how Slonem approaches his artwork. “I repeat subjects that mean a lot to me, like repeating a divine name or mantra.” He paints birds, butterflies, bunnies, bayous, flowers and other aspects of the natural world. His life’s work is a celebration of nature, so naturally, he is passionate about environmental conservation and wildlife preservation, both of which are critical issues in Louisiana.

Another favorite subject is Abraham Lincoln, who Slonem has given a new life, presenting him in the vernacular of modernism and pop art. “Lincoln was one of our greatest presidents. He was a complete free-being and a great soul, and he changed American life in ways that were profound and wonderful. I am fascinated by who he is and who he continues to be in our popular culture,” he says. “More than any other president, he’s had a profound and lasting effect on America.”

Color is a defining characteristic of his career. In Slonem’s work, color abounds, but his love of color does not stop there—his homes, studio and wardrobe are bursting with color. In a world of beige and grey, Hunt Slonem is a luminous advocate for the transformative power of color. “The Egyptians and Romans painted sculptures bright colors. Color has been used for centuries,” he tells me. “The color palates of the 18th and 19th centuries were wild. Louisiana has a history of painting houses (the colors of) shrimp and pinks and lavenders and orange.”

“We are in a color revival,” Slonem declares. “Color is candy for the eye; it is mystical: each color has its own properties of inspiration and joy. In an age of grimness and bad news, we need color,” he says, making a connection with the news of the day.

I asked Slonem about how he pioneered the artistic process of the cross-hatching used often in his work. This contemporary take on sgraffito, the Italian word meaning “to scratch,” involves scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer of a contrasting color. “It was not an abstraction. It was a play on realism,” he explains. “It was the most daring thing I had done in my career: I am very traditional with my use of the brush most of the time, but now I use it to paint whiskers on bunnies and to portray bird cages.”

Slonem also uses his cross-hatch method to portray the world through the lens with which he became quite familiar: seeing things through the grid of a cage. “I noticed that I had been living with a 40-foot bird cage for 45 years, and I came up with the idea as a nod to modernism. The grid is such a mark-maker of modern painting.” He explains the technique: “I just picked up the back of the brush, and at first, just used the back of the brush to make the marks of the cage as if I was watching everything through it. Then I started whittling the brush and doing a finer pattern,” he says. ”Originally, it was a fivepart process of lines going in every direction and completely repetitive and completely the same. I sometimes feel like a robot making these marks, but I have simplified it in my work since then to preserve more color.”

An artistic mark of a Slonem work is the antique, intricate, often gilded frames that frequently accompany his modern, vibrant paintings. “It came from necessity. I had a show at VCU in Richmond, and they wanted every piece to be framed; at the time, I could not afford contemporary framing,” he tells me. “I have been a devotee of flea markets in New York since the early ’70s, and I discovered that many antique frames fit the painting sizes I was using, particularly 8×10’s. So, I framed 99 percent of this show in antique frames and loved them. It is part of my art form to collect, so the rare, antique and unique frames are a natural complement to the work.”

As a way of displaying his collection of frames, he created ”bunny walls,” which are now a major part of the Hunt Slonem brand. “They have even made wallpapers out of my bunny walls,” he says, coming full circle.

Fifty years after Slonem arrived in New Orleans, the artist continues to animate the rich culture of his adopted home state through his work. “I believe in the magic of Louisiana so enormously that it brings tears to my eyes. I have come back to Louisiana every year since I graduated from Tulane in 1973,” Hunt Slonem tells me. His affection offers many great gifts to our Louisiana community.

Cayman Clevenger is an art attorney, fine-art appraiser and art broker. For more information about Hunt Slonem, see LouisianaArt.com.